Federal judge puts temporary halt to Ohio executions

COLUMBUS -- A federal judge has postponed the next two scheduled Ohio executions, citing a change in lethal injection procedures adopted by state prison officials last month.

In a short statement filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, Judge Gregory L. Frost ordered the stay in executions until Aug. 15.

Ronald Phillips was slated to receive his lethal injection July 2 after receiving a temporary stay from Gov. John Kasich last year to determine whether he could donate organs to ailing family members. Phillips was sentenced to death for the 1993 rape and murder of a 3-year-old girl in Akron.

Frost's decision also affects William Montgomery, who was scheduled to be executed Aug. 6 for the murder of two Toledo women in 1986.

Pending further delays, Phillips still would be the next inmate scheduled for execution, followed by Raymond Tibbetts, who murdered his wife and another man in Cincinnati in 1997 and is facing a lethal injection in October.

Eight other executions are scheduled in Ohio through early 2016.

Frost is considering legal challenges to Ohio's execution methods, following the prolonged death of Dennis McGuire in January and a subsequent decision by the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to increase the dosage of two drugs used in lethal injections.

McGuire was the first inmate executed using a new two-drug combination. The process took about 25 minutes, and witnesses described him gasping for breath.

State prison officials who reviewed his execution said McGuire was "asleep and not conscious" and "did not experience pain, distress or air hunger" during it.